


Romania

by miss_aphelion



Series: Trading Places Verse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Parallel Universes, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 15:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11603313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_aphelion/pseuds/miss_aphelion
Summary: “Are you here to kill me?” Steve asks her in Russian.“If I wanted you dead, you would never have seen me,” Natasha replies in kind, before seamlessly slipping back into English. “Let’s go for a walk.”(Or; Steve and Bucky are hiding out in Bucharest, and Natasha is only a good assassin when she actually wants to kill her target)





	Romania

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this based on some feedback from the first story. Seranita wanted Steve to confide in Natasha and forgeturself wanted Steve to confide in anyone, and this just sort of happened. So thank you to both of them for sparking the muses!

_Bucky and his stupid plums_ , is his first thought when he sees her. 

They’re in Bucharest, traveling under the guise of brothers, which they often did to limit attention. Jamie and Stephen Phelps. Bucky has let his hair grow a bit. It isn’t like it had been in the other world, but it’s long enough that it hangs in his face and makes him less recognizable as the famous Bucky Barnes.

No one much remembers Steve Rogers, but he grows a trim beard anyway.

Steve has been teaching Bucky Romanian, along with Russian. But while he’s been picking up the languages frighteningly quick, and has an ear for accents that’s even better than his own, Bucky still isn’t comfortable using it with the locals.

So when he decides he has to have some more plums from the market, Steve had offered to go for him.

He doesn’t expect the Black Widow to appear right beside him, and he’s not used to being caught off guard. He goes still as she reaches past him, causally testing the weight of one of the plums. 

“How was Fiji?” she asks. 

She's wearing a tan trench coat, oversized sunglasses and three inch heels. With as stunning as she is, she should stand out. She doesn't. Maybe it's the way she holds herself like she's lived here all her life. 

“Are you here to kill me?” Steve asks her in Russian. 

“If I wanted you dead, you would never have seen me,” Natasha replies in kind, before seamlessly slipping back into English. “Let’s go for a walk.” 

She turns and walks away, which he would have seen as a stupid move coming from anyone else—but he knows even with her back turned she’s still monitoring his every move. He steps away from the fruit stand and follows after her. She leads him down the street, into a small park. This early, there isn’t really anyone else there. 

“You never answered my question,” she says. 

“You know you only asked it to prove you’ve known where we were the whole time,” Steve says. “I doubt you’re really interested.” 

“On the contrary,” she says. “You took one of my best friends with you, so I’m very interested. It was a nice display you put on for the security cameras, trying to make it look like you were dragging him with you. Did you want us to come after you?” 

“I wanted him to have a defense if we were caught,” he admits. 

“Ah,” Natasha says, grinning slightly. “Didn’t much take James into account with that one, did you? He’ll never let you take the fall for him.” 

His breath hitches at her wording, and he presses his eyes shut for a moment. It’s true, Bucky never would. Which is why Steve never tells him about it when he does it. “I would never hurt him,” he promises. 

“I know that,” she says, glancing towards the street. “That’s not my concern.” 

“Then why are you here?” he asks. 

“Fury sent me to kill you,” she answers, before turning back to look at him. 

He goes tense, but she would never have told him if she intended to follow it through. Her remark earlier hadn’t been an idle threat: if she’d wanted him dead, he’d already be dead. “Not like you to disobey orders,” he says. 

“Maybe you don’t know me that well,” she says. 

“Why now?” Steve asks. He and Bucky have been on the move for months, and obviously not covering their tracks quite as well he thought. It wasn’t easy hiding from people like Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff, and they’re obviously going to have to up their game after this.

“The World Council isn’t happy about losing Barnes. He’s the face of the Avengers, and people want him back. They aren’t thrilled that you’re on the loose, either. On top of that, Stark’s in a downward spiral,” she admits. “Pepper left him, and Barnes is the only other one he’s ever listened to. Fury wants his team back. You’re in the way of that.” 

Steve laughs. “And he thinks he’ll get Bucky back if he kills me?” 

“Unofficially, you’re supposed to have an accident,” she says. 

“Right,” Steve says. “And what, you send Bucky back to the Avengers tower to grieve and make up with Stark?” He clenches his metal fist, angered at the thought. “Is Stark in love with him?” 

Natasha looks back at him, slightly surprised. “Tony and James? No, there was never anything between them but friendship. I think that’s why James is so important to him. It may have been the first time he ever had a real friend. He loves Pepper and Rhodes, but they’re both still in the position of managing him.” She sighs, glancing towards her feet. “Tony loves James like a little brother. Which is strange if you think too much about it.” 

Steve grins wryly, because it’s even stranger if you know the world they came from. “So are you trying to guilt us into going back now? Stark wants nothing to do with me,” he says. “And I’m not letting Bucky go.” 

“That’s not what I’m doing,” she says. “But James will never explain to you what he’s given up, and you should know what was left behind.” 

“I know better than you think,” he tells her. 

“Tony would probably forgive you just to get him back, but he hates himself for that, which just makes him angry all over again,” she says. “It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s not going to end well for anyone.” 

“We can’t go back,” Steve says. “I’m sorry. I really am. But we can’t.” 

“I know,” Natasha says, but she sounds sad. 

“Will he send someone else after us?” he asks, wondering how long they might have to run. 

“If Fury really wanted you dead, he wouldn't have sent me in the first place,” she says. “He’s not going to send anyone else.” 

“Spies,” Steve snorts, thinking of all the misdirection and the lies and remembering all over again why he took Bucky and ran in the first place. “He orders you to kill me knowing you won’t kill me, and what? Hoping you’ll recruit me? He can’t ever just say what he wants?” 

“As head of SHIELD he needs to make sure the paperwork lines up,” she says wryly. “The Council doesn’t want you back on the payroll, they want you dead. He gave me the job because he doesn’t want you dead but can’t officially take that position.” 

“How can he think I’d ever come back to work for him?” Steve asks, shaking his head. 

“He's a closet idealist,” Natasha tells him, sounding strangely fond. “He wants the band back together.” 

“We don’t do that anymore,” Steve says. “We’re living the quiet life.” 

“People like us, Steve,” Natasha says, and the use of his first name sends him back to another time and place, “we weren’t made for the quiet life.” 

“Maybe not,” he agrees. “But it’s what Bucky deserves, so I’m going to try my best to give it to him.” He looks over at her. “Why are you warning me, really?” 

“I don’t kill people that don’t deserve it,” Natasha says simply. “And you should know what you’re up against.” 

“But you’ve never liked me,” he protests. “You’ve been suspicious of me from the start. You told Bucky not to trust me.” 

“I believe you were made to do terrible things, but that your mind is your own. So I’m not sure why you did them, and that makes me nervous,” she says. “That, and you’re manipulating James; so he can love you, that’s fine, but I still don’t think he should trust you.” 

He opens his mouth to protest, and she narrows her eyes, stepping closer. “Don’t deny it,” she says. “You’ve been moving all of us like pieces on a board. You know things you shouldn’t. You know things about _me_ that you shouldn’t.” 

“What makes you say that?” he asks carefully. 

“Because when you look at me you actually see me,” she says. “Tell me, have we met before?” 

His first instinct is to deny it, but he desperately needs an ally, someone to run interference for him and Bucky. Natasha is too clever to lie to, and she’ll never help him if he’s holding back. He’s sworn never to tell anyone anyone the full story of what he did, but if there’s one person in any world that he could trust with this—

“We have,” she says, closing the last of the distance between them, already reading the answer in his eyes. “When? How?” 

“Monsters and magic, you remember?” Steve asks. “That’s what you said to Clint. I can’t really think of a better way to put it.” 

“I never told you that,” she says, looking unnerved. “I never told James that, either. Clint wouldn’t have told either of you.” 

“You did tell me, the first time it happened,” he says. “When I was the one that got woken up from the ice. When I was the one that fought with you against Loki.” 

“You’re from some kind of parallel world,” she whispers, watching him closely. “I suppose there’s been stranger things.” 

“It was more like…time travel, I think. I changed the past,” Steve says, glancing away. “I made a deal with a sorceress and I ended up back on a train in nineteen-forty-four. I made sure I was the one that fell.”

Natasha looks shaken, and her eyes glance back towards the horizon. "You traded places with him," she realizes, her voice strained. "You rewrote the entire world for him."

"Yes," Steve agrees.

"Does he know?” she asks. 

"No, and he never will,” he snaps, the threat in his words clear. 

“It would destroy him,” Natasha says softly. “He’d never forgive you. He’d never forgive himself.” 

“He can never find out,” Steve says. “I’ve killed the sorceress, but Bucky’s resourceful. I can’t have him trying to put things back how they were. They’re better now, trust me. Things are—they’re just better.” 

Natasha shakes her head, still looking disbelieving. “This isn’t the sort of thing you mess with, Rogers,” she says. 

“You know Bucky,” Steve says, swallowing hard. “You know that smile he has? Lights up the whole room? Imagine that all stripped away. He didn’t know me. He didn’t even know his own name. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let that happen to him.” 

“Based on the stories he’s told me of you, I’m not sure how you were more suited to the role,” she says, sounding suddenly tired. “He wouldn’t have wanted that for you.” 

“No,” Steve agrees. “But I got to keep my mind. They took his.” 

She freezes, putting the pieces together in an instant. How he could have worked for Hydra without losing his mind. She’s always been so brilliant, and Steve realizes suddenly how much he’s missed her. 

“If it was you,” he says softly, “and you got to trade places with Clint, to spare him what Loki did—wouldn’t you have done it?” 

“No,” she says simply.

Steve breathes out, looking away. “I thought you would understand.” 

“I do understand,” she says tightly. “But you play the hand you’re dealt, Rogers. And if I’m Loki’s minion, maybe I kill Clint instead of saving him.” 

“Maybe that’s the difference,” Steve says. “You saved Clint. I didn’t get to save Bucky.” 

“He was dead in that world?” she asks, sounding shaken. He wonders if it’s as hard for her to imagine a world without Bucky as it is for him. 

“No,” he admits. 

“Then maybe you just weren’t trying hard enough,” she snaps. She wraps her hands around herself, but her expression appears almost serene. He knows it for the mask that it is. 

“You may be right,” he says. “I know—I know what I did wasn’t a sacrifice. It was selfish, because I need him, and I needed him to be okay. Watching him suffer hurts so much more than suffering. I’d have paid a much higher price to stop it than I actually did.” 

“That’s a hell of a liability,” she says quietly. 

He looks back at her. “Why do you think I took us out of the game?” 

Natasha is quiet for a moment, but seems to accept that for the confession that it is. Steve knows exactly what his weakness is, and he’s doing his best to keep it from being exposed. 

"Who was I?" she asks, somewhat wistfully. “In your world?” 

"You were the same,” Steve says, because he’s seen differences in others but not in her. “You are who you were.”

She looks back at him shrewdly. “And who were you?”

"A symbol. An icon," he says, not quite able to keep the bitterness from his voice. "A living museum exhibit."

“Hmm,” she says, watching him closely. ”And what are you now?"

"Alive," he says, which doesn’t quite cover it, but gets close enough. He’s felt like he’s been sleepwalking for years, and it wasn’t until he had Bucky back that he truly woke up. 

Natasha nods, and then looks away again. "We were friends," she says, and it is not a question.

“Yes,” Steve agrees. “You were one of the only people I trusted. I’d like to think that the reverse was true, too.” 

“I think it probably was,” she says, after a moment. “I’ll do my best to keep Fury off your back. I’ll give you what time I can.” She pauses, making sure to meet his eyes. “But you’re running up a tab with the universe, and one day it’s going to come due.” She grins wryly, to soften the words. “Also, maybe get a little more creative with your cover identities, Stephen.” 

Steve grins at her. “I’m Jamie, actually,” he tells her. She snorts, and turns to leave. 

“Nat,” Steve calls, and she pauses, turning back curiously. “Thank you. For this, for being there for Bucky when I couldn’t. For being my friend the first time around.” 

“Maybe it doesn’t have to just be the first time. I’m sort of big on second chances these days,” she says, grinning slyly before turning back around. “I’ll see you around, Rogers.” 

She doesn’t look back again, and Steve makes his way back to the hotel. When he gets there, Bucky is still where he left him. He’s splayed out on the covers like a starfish, wearing nothing but a black pair of boxer briefs. Steve rolls his eyes. “Have you even moved since I’ve been gone?” he asks. 

“I recall when we first got here,” Bucky says, his voice slightly muffled by the pillow, “you said you weren’t going to let me out of the bed.” 

“I didn’t think you’d take me quite so literally,” Steve says, as he climbs up onto the bed beside him. “You’re a super soldier, Buck. This is getting ridiculous. You’ve gone weeks without sleep before.” 

Bucky lifted his head up then, frowning back at him. “I certainly have not,” he says. 

Steve freezes for a moment at his slip, and then leans down to distract him with a kiss. "I might be exaggerating," he tells him. "But I'm fine on four hours sleep. You're still dead to the world when I get back from my run. I'm starting to get concerned."

“Be concerned about yourself. I’m the normal one, you punk,” he tells him sleepily, “and I’m pretty sure the way you are has less to do with the serum and more to do with you being an overachieving control freak.” 

“Oh, is that what you think?” Steve asks, grinning down at him.

Bucky tosses him a smug grin. “What are you gonna do about it?” 

Steve pushes forward, rolling Bucky onto his back and straddling him. “Nothing at all,” he promises, as he leans down to scatter kisses across his neck. 

Bucky moans, wiggling beneath him. “Steve?” 

“Hmm?” he asks, moving up to kiss along his jaw. “What?” 

“Where are my plums?”


End file.
